Science

Citing concern over increasing reports of addiction and overdoses, a Food and Drug Administration safety panel has recommended new restrictions on access to the commonly-used painkiller Vicodin and other products. The Wall Street Journal...

A prominent Malaysian biologist on Saturday was named first chief of a UN scientific panel which aims to turn the world’s spotlight on species loss, as a Nobel-winning counterpart has done for climate change. In their first plenary...

It has been called the world’s oldest recorded disease, an evil that humans have known for more than 3,500 years, as papyri from ancient Egypt testify. Yet drugs to cure leprosy are cheap, plentiful and effective. So why is this biblical...

Fish were found to contain small pieces of plastic known as ‘microbeads’, in a study of 10 species One-third of fish caught off the south-west coast of England have traces of plastic contamination from sources including sanitary...

Mass extinction? Man may still have time to catalog Earth's species. For years, ecologists and biologists have warned that the planet is sliding into a mass extinction event comparable to the one that did in the dinosaurs 65 million years...

More than a fifth of the world’s population was infected by the H1N1 virus in the 2009-2010 flu pandemic, according to new estimates released on Friday. The study confirms warnings that so-called swine flu was highly contagious. It also...

Dung beetles use light from the Milky Way to roll their balls of precious dung out of the way of competitors, scientists reported on Friday. Even though they have just a tiny brain and weak eyes, the beetles use the progressive gradient of light...

Scientists have discovered two new genetic mutations that occur together in 71 percent of malignant melanoma tumors, an aggressive and deadly cancer of the skin, a study said. The mutations, detected in a part of the cancer genome that controls...

A plunge in the world’s population of frogs and toads may be blamed, at least in part, on farm pesticides, researchers in Germany said on Thursday. Tests of fungicides and insecticides, when used at recommended dilutions, killed 40 percent...

If you or someone you love have suffered a stroke and been forced into disability, a new breakthrough made by doctors at Tel Aviv University appears to offer hope for a “significant” level of recovery in the near future. Clinical...

Genetic sequencing of wolves and domesticated dogs has revealed a key insight into how that evolutionary change happened, finding that it has to do more with human diets than previously expected. To many dog owners, it probably won’t come...

All 154 Shakespeare sonnets have been spelled out in DNA to demonstrate the vast potential of genetic data storage His words have touched the lovelorn and been pored over by brooding teenagers for more than four hundred years, but now some of...

Britain’s most senior medical adviser has warned MPs that the rise in drug-resistant diseases could trigger a national emergency comparable to a catastrophic terrorist attack, pandemic flu or major coastal flooding. Dame Sally Davies, the...

Scientists who created a mutant bird flu virus said Wednesday they will resume the controversial research after taking a 12-month break to allay fears of the bug escaping the lab or falling into terrorist hands. Citing a “public health...

Archaeologists digging outside Johannesburg have unearthed a fossilised species of previously unknown fox, which they hope will help flesh out the evolutionary journey of modern canines. The new species — named Vulpes Skinneri after South...